JEANIE MILEY: Don't always believe what people tell you

Recently, I had to take care of some personal business that I knew was going to take a lot of time. I planned ahead to allow for all the time I thought I might need, gathered my documents and a book to read while I waited, and headed out to accomplish my mission.

Sure enough, the room where I would do my business was packed with other people who had the same mission in mind. I had no other choice but to take a deep breath and fall in the proper line, which was only the first of several steps in completing my mission.

Within a minute or two, I became aware that the people around me were discussing whether one had to have this or that document; finally, I asked the people in front of me about the issue. With total confidence, they assured me that all the rules had changed and that, indeed, all of the documents mentioned were necessary.

Those two strangers were really sure of themselves, holding out their documents for me to see, and for a split second, I almost left my place in line to return home.

A quiet voice in my head wouldn't let me leave, however, so I kept my place in line, inching ever so slowly to the front of the line. As soon as I approached the person in charge, I confessed that I didn't have the document the others were so sure I needed.

"You don't need that document," the woman in charge told me. "We have you right here in our system. Don't you know that you can't always believe what people in line tell you?"

Over the past few weeks, I have been told all kinds of tall tales by people who speak with great authority about things that have to be outside their sphere of knowledge.

"How do they know that?" I often wonder, and "Why don't I know those things?"

Over the past few years, I've witnessed rumors and innuendoes being blown up like a blimp that flies across the sky, trailing toxic fumes like streamers. All it takes for a lie to take on a life of its own is for enough people to tell that lie often enough, and long enough, and fervently enough. Pretty soon, people will accept the lie for the truth.

In my lifetime, I have seen reputations and careers ruined by someone telling something that might or might not have had a shred of truth to it. In the hands of the careless and the callous that lie took on the power to destroy a person's life. Sadly, too, I have seen people with bad intentions and ulterior motives deliberately mislead good people.

I've seen institutions and organizations, as well as marriages and friendships, blown up over who is right and who is wrong about something that isn't even true. Then both parties, the guilty and the innocent, are left to sing the sad country-western lament about who picks up the pieces when two fools collide, each of them insisting that he/she is right and wanting things his/her way.

My experience of taking care of some personal business was a minor occurrence in my life. If I'd had to go home and get the documents the others in line were so sure I had to have, I would have lost time, but nothing else.

Thankfully, that experience had no particular consequences, but it reminded me of the simple truth the woman in charge — who did know what she was talking about — gave me: You can't always believe what people in line tell you.

You can't always believe what people with a microphone or behind a camera tell you, no matter how glamorous they look or how fervently they broadcast their message.

You can't always believe what "they" say, whoever they might be; it is important to exercise and use the gift of discernment in big and small issues so that you can separate the wheat from the chaff, fact from fiction and the truth from a lie.

Jeanie Miley, a former San Angelo resident, is an inspirational author and speaker. Her column appears Saturdays. Email her at jeaniemiley19@aol.com.